


Brother Mine

by orphan_account



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Family Feels, Gen, Growing Up, Sibling Bonding, Sibling Rivalry, Twins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2020-01-05 02:33:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18356825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: They weren’t identical, but they looked similar enough that it was obvious that they were twins. Technically, all seven of them considered themselves to be something of a group of septuplets, seeing as they all shared the same birthday. But Luther and Five were special, they were full siblings. Related by blood, the only link they had to who their real family was.





	Brother Mine

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a conversation Yumoh and I had about Five and Luther being twins. So I owe this one to you.

I am not my brother…

They weren’t identical, but they looked similar enough that it was obvious that they were twins. Technically, all seven of them considered themselves to be something of a group of septuplets, seeing as they all shared the same birthday. But Luther and Five were special, they were full siblings. Related by blood, the only link they had to who their real family was. 

When they were little, they were nearly inseparable. Five nearly gave their nanny a heart attack more than once when he would disappear from his cradle, only to be found in Luther’s. 

Luther learned to walk first and he was right there by Five’s side when Five took his first step. And when Five learned to read, he and Luther sat together as he narrated Goodnight Moon to his brother. If one of them needed a hand, they would always ask the other. 

Reginald was thrilled to have gotten his hands on a set of twins, so he could test his theories on them. He was disappointed when he realized they didn’t develop similar powers, but it led to a different theory he could test.

That’s when they started to grow apart. As toddlers, they paid no mind to the difference in their numbers: one and five. Those were just their names. Not after Dad started giving all the attention to his favored Number One, however. They were as separated as their numbers were.

Five hated it: he hated how Luther was always praised, how he was always treated as better than everyone else, how he wasn’t his twin brother anymore.

That was about when Luther dyed his hair blonde too. Where once they used to look nearly identical, they were now completely different. Luther was officially the “golden boy” of the family. And now he was almost unrecognizable from Five, in both personality and appearance. 

But he wasn’t unrecognizable, he could never not see how they had the same eyes. How they both had a birthmark on their right shoulder. How they held themselves in the same way. How they would strive for glory together, though apart. How they would walk and talk the same because they taught each other how to do it. How they both loved science, and too sugary foods, and that same music that was just perfect to dance to. Hell, they even danced the same way. But now he would look in the mirror and not see Luther as well, maybe that was a good thing though, he told himself, he was his own person after all. 

He was his own person and he would make it known. If Luther was the perfect child, then Five would rebel. If Luther was the strongest, he would be the smartest. If Luther was number one in order of their numbers, then he would be number one in order of everything else. He would ask for extra training whenever Dad would spend more time with Luther than any of the others, just so he could see Luther’s gears turning in his head. Well, those gears weren’t as well-oiled as his were, and he would prove it. He would prove it by showing everyone, even Dad, that he had the greatest control over his powers. Time travel; he’d discussed it with the old man briefly only to be forbidden from even attempting it.

So he ran away. And freedom was the best thing he had ever experienced.

Until it wasn’t. Until he couldn’t get back. His powers weren’t working. Why weren’t they working? Shit. C’mon. Why weren’t they working? What happened? Where was everyone?

That was Luther. In the rubble, that was unmistakably Luther. No, it wasn’t, it couldn’t be. He was...he was dead. And...and there was Diego, and Allison, and Klaus. No! No, those weren’t his siblings. But the umbrella tattoo on their arms said otherwise.

He grew older in that wasteland of a world. Soon he was the same age as his siblings were when they… He looked like Luther did: their face was the same, their eyes, their ears, and their hair used to be the same. He hated it. He hated it, even more, when he got even older because now he was looking at someone Luther wouldn't ever get to be. No gray hairs, or achy joints, or wrinkles.

His hair grew long and tangled, and he grew a beard. And he never cut them, not until he was hindered by his hair would he cut it. Because Luther hated long hair, so if he had long hair then he wouldn’t look like Luther anymore. Then he wouldn’t have to see Luther’s reflection in the shattered glass and in the bottles he drank from anymore. 

He was his own person. He was the only person. He missed being a twin.

* * *

Luther knew he wanted to go to the moon when Five first read him that book. He doesn’t remember the specifics, but he knows that’s where it all started. And all ended.

He loved his brother. He loved his family. He loved their Dad too. And their Dad loved him, he did because he would take him out to his favorite tree. And he would praise him. And he made him the leader.

But Five loved him too. Five would read to him, and dance with him, and make their favorite snacks, and talk about what he had learned in his science books and, in turn, he would talk about the moon and the stars and nebulas and novae and galaxies and space. He loved to talk about space because he loved his brother, and his fondest memory of them was reading a small book called Goodnight Moon together. That little word, “moon,” became his favorite word, then it became his favorite thing. That was all because of Five.

And when he got a little bit older, he decided to dye his hair blonde, like Mom’s. He wanted to stand out some against all his dark-haired siblings. He wanted to stand out against his twin brother who was so much better than him and he hated to admit it. 

He just didn’t realize how much he hurt Five by doing that. It didn’t mean to hurt him. But Five didn’t care. They kept clashing from there on out. Not to the degree that he and Diego did, maybe that was because Five fought him silently. He tried to outdo him at every turn, so he retaliated by trying to outdo him too. He was number one, after all, he was the best, he was the leader.

He was the worst leader, he realized the night Five ran away. How could he lead his other siblings when even his own twin wouldn’t listen to him? 

He was also the worst brother because he didn’t even try and stop him. He let him run away; he was the one who pushed him away. This was all his fault. No, Dad told him later, that was an act of jealousy on Five’s part. He just didn’t know that his brother should’ve never felt jealous of him in the first place.

The thing about dying hair blonde is that it has to keep being dyed then because the roots grow back dark. But he wanted his hair to grow back dark. His hair was the same color as Five’s, and he wanted to see his brother again.

Or so he thought. Along with having his hair grow back dark, he allowed it to grow slightly longer: just like Five’s did. Now he looked like a twin again. Now he looked almost identical again, and he knew that he did because Klaus stared at him, eyes tearing up, and he asked if he was Five. If he was Five’s ghost.

He ran right back up to the bathroom and locked himself in there for the rest of the day. He grabbed the scissors and he cut away at his hair until it looked like a horrible mistake, but at least it didn’t look like Five. And he dyed his hair blonde again, but not the golden blonde he had always dyed it. Now it was darker, duller. Different.

He stayed home even when everyone left. Because who else was going to be the hero then? Who else was going to stay with Dad, and Mom, and Pogo? And who else was going to wait for Five to come back? Vanya used to stay up every night and wait for Five, Klaus would sometimes try to contact his ghost before he realized that he wasn’t sure if he wanted a reply. Ben used to wait with Vanya some nights, he knew. But now Ben was dead. 

Allison and Diego would wait with him in his room in the middle of the night when he missed Five more than he normally did. He only let it show that he missed him, however, in the middle of the night. Because Dad wouldn’t approve of his mourning a mistake. His twin brother was a mistake? He didn’t question it, he never questioned anything Dad told him.

He stayed home because he wanted to be a hero, he wanted to wait for Five still (he would occasionally flip through science articles hoping to see if maybe Five was out there and had accomplished something great. He knew his brother would accomplish something great.) He stayed because he didn’t feel that he deserved to accomplish something in the outside world if his brother didn’t.

Then the incident happened. Now he was an animal, he wasn’t human anymore, he was broken and horrible and he hated himself. He hated himself because his matching birthmark was gone now, because he no longer looked anything like Five.

But he had the moon, just like he had always wanted. He had a robot up there with him; his name was Ben, for his dead brother. Five wasn’t dead, he was just hidden like the dark side of the moon. 

And hopefully wherever Five was, was better than the moon, because it wasn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. It’s lonely and dark and scary and quiet. It was the same as being a twin without having your twin anymore.

…and he is not me.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you liked this, please leave a kudo or comment!
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr at nevermore-plutonianshore!


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